It’s seething on the Rhine!
The derby between Cologne and Leverkusen on Sunday (3:30 p.m. / DAZN) is boiling up before the kick-off. During the week the clubs shot the first poison arrows back and forth. The day before the game, the taunts go into the next round.
► FC coach Steffen Baumgart (49) opened on Tuesday: “We would also have a home game in Leverkusen.”
► Bayer’s sports boss Rudi Völler (61) countered in BILD: “Baumgart still seems to be in the glue phase with his own fans.”
On Friday Baumgart actually wanted to end the topic at the press conference, played down the taunts (“For me a subordinate clause”).
But now there is trouble about the next topic!
In the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” Baumgart commented on Florian Wirtz (18). The Bundesliga star is the most expensive mistake in FC history. Leverkusen got him in January 2020 for only 300,000 euros from the FC youth team. The transfermarkt.de portal has already put its market value at EUR 65 million.
“He was trained very, very well over a long period of time in our youth training center in Cologne. And there was once an agreement between Cologne, Leverkusen and Mönchengladbach that they would not poach any players from each other, ”said the Cologne coach. “That was canceled. From this we can see what kind of business we are in. “
And further: “1. FC Köln may not have reacted quickly enough at one point or another, but on the other hand we have to say that a lot of money has flowed into it.”
Leverkusen defended themselves against the accusation at the time. The club stated that the player was intended for the professionals. After four games in the U19, Wirtz was with the professionals.
When asked by BILD about the Baumgart criticism, Völler says: “This is the fairy tale version. I can explain the absolutely true version of the change to him over coffee after the derby. Florian wanted half the league. All of us at Bayer 04 are very happy that he chose us back then. “
Baumgart had actually already closed the Wirtz topic on Friday, said: “And now we should stop crying about it any longer, but go our way.” But now he has let the topic boil up again …
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